8. EVOLUTION AND THE THINKING MIND.
Speaking in general terms evolution is a development from a lower to a higher state. Thus have come the various species of the vegetable and animal world. Thelower orders of life are simple in structure and function. In the one-celled animate form a single organ performs all of the work needed to maintain life and perpetuate the species. If these simple life-forms are cut in two, life continues in the two parts as if nothing had happened. Aside from their simplicity there is little of interdependence of function and little of co-ordination of organs in the lowest life-forms. In short there is no division of labor; “each cell is a world unto itself.”
An analogous development is seen in the thinking mind. The little child thinks in lumps, and these lumps are only faultily linked together, but the adult thinks in terms of the grains of the lump, each grain having its place, which it must occupy for the sake of all the other grains as well as the entire lump. The child’s thinking is vague, general and inaccurate, while the adult’s thinking should be definite, specialized and accurate. Thinking in the lump means little discrimination and very faulty integration or unity, while thinking in terms of the grains means detailed discrimination and perfect integration. To illustrate: The child sees a dog trotting along the side walk which, according to the suggestion of his mother, he learns to call “bow-wow.” Later he observes a cat and at once says “bow-wow,” because all that the child notes is that something with legs, ears and a tail is trotting along the side walk. Anything which fits these general marks is a “bow-wow.” Similarly when a child first observes a robin perched on a gate post he fails to distinguish between the two—it is all bird from the top of the robin’s head to the bottom of the gate post.
Progress in thinking is measured by progress in discrimination. The skilled thinker divides the large unit into very small units, compares these with each other and then reunites them into a more perfect and unified whole. First there is an analysis and then a synthesis. Like a shuttle the power of thought works in and out; it goes in to separate, it comes out to unify.
There is another aspect in the analogy between the life of the physical and mental worlds. Somewhere in the order of progress there is a connecting link between the mineral and vegetable kingdoms, likewise between the vegetable and animal kingdoms. The sensation is as much a state of feeling as an act of knowing and consequently is the connecting link between the feeling mind and the knowing mind.If the percept is the result of thinking as well as intuition then it may stand for the dividing line between the knowing[4] mind and the thinking mind.